By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

Hiring an insurance broker last year is paying off for the city of Hays.

The city will again pay less for its commercial insurance annual premium when it’s renewed July 1.

Tanner Burns of Arthur J. Gallagher & Co. told commissioners Thursday night his company “has made just shy of $9,000 in premium savings over the course of two years while still improving coverage.”

“Last year we moved your equipment breakdown coverage and your crime coverage out of the package with BRIT to other insurers who have more of a specialty in those particular lines of coverage, which resulted in a lot of the premium savings we were able to generate last year as well as better coverage,” Burns explained.

Hays Finance Director Kim Rupp admitted he “wasn’t real amenable to having different insurance companies for each line.  However, Gallagher kind of made me see the light and show that it was beneficial for us.”

“Because we did approach multiple other insurers last year, really the entire marketplace,” Burns said, “we decided this year, if we could get early favorable agreements from the incumbent insurers, we would stick with those renewals.”

“It protects the city’s reputation in the insurance marketplace not to shop every single year. Reviewing the marketplace conditions, knowing that rates were up an average of about 2% at that time, we knew we could get better deals negotiated early…ultimately delivering the $2,638 decrease this year,” he said.

Commissioners unanimously approved the Gallagher bid of $187,023 for renewing the city’s commercial insurance.  Commissioner Lance Jones was absent from Thursday’s meeting.

Covered under the policies with BRIT, Hartford, Old Republic, Hanover and National Union Fire insurance companies are:

Commercial Property
Inland Marine/Scheduled Equipment
Equipment Breakdown
Crime
General Liability
Public Entity Management Liability
Law Enforcement Liability
Employment Practices Liability
Airport Liability
Commercial Auto
Umbrella
Public Entity Cyber Liability